25 September 2013

22 September 2013

The tree is gone. I miss it. Now there is no shade over our house, no screen between us and the neighbor, and a huge gap. Frown. The tree in our side yard is also slowly dying and will have to go once of these months/years. I dread that removal. Since we now have a fun stump I took some photos of Evelyn on the stump (course...). The tree came down with earth shaking thumps over the course of two days. The kids and I had to be out of the house while the lady cleaned our kitchen and bathrooms. I used the opportunity to get Evelyn dressed up. She looked so bight and happy wearing a cute flower coverall. She is starting to actually look at me and not at my hair. I swear she smiled at me yesterday! Melt my heart. Amelia got to stroll Evelyn around the block a couple times while Justin and I cleaned out all the plants that died in the storms. Lost 2.5 tomato plants, my chard, beans, peppers, and squash plants. Darn it.

Since Evelyn came home Everett refuses to fall asleep in his bed. He complains and mutters "I don wanna it" until he falls asleep on the floor. Now I roll him up in a taquito and lay him on the floor singing Primary songs until the doof brothers fall asleep. I secretly love singing to my kids. Reminds me of all the songs my own mom sang to us. Since then Everett is falling asleep in strange places during the day. I am so glad he takes a nap when he needs to. His long, dark lashes are so endearing! Phillip caught a stuffy nose this weekend. Justin stayed home from church with the boys. The girls went to church today...HOORAY! Evelyn made her debut! I FINALLY got to put her in a cute little dress.

We made it to storytime this week. Phillip was the only attendee so got spoiled with attention. He helped Ms Nightingale carry the treasure chest back to the office, a coveted task. Aunt Courtenay sent a fun "baby shower in a box" package this week. We love the silicone trays! The kids devoured jello snacks for treat that evening, loving the fun shapes. I saw a totally adorable photo on FB this week of a newborn tucked into blankets with the baby's hands clutching the covers. I spent 90 minutes trying to get the pose with Evelyn. She was not cooperating AT ALL, even with the heat blasting, noise machine, and a full tummy. I tried the next afternoon and sort of got the pose, she refused to grab the cover blanket. My days of newborn photos are very limited now, she is not so poseable anymore. I had fun while it lasted.

Friday while Phillip was at preschool and I was working on the dishes, Everett disappeared. He is pretty good at hiding and staying quiet while I look. I finally found him huddled in Evelyn's room sitting in a plastic tub with a green rug draped over his head. He had his old crib light playing and his binky stuffed in his mouth. He was delighted with a fun game of hide and seek. We went to visit Justin at work. All the ladies wanted to meet Miss Evelyn. One of Cabela's work mottos is "Born to Work Here." Evelyn visited shortly after being born, does that count? One lady gave the boys each a pinwheel. Before we left the boys had a WWF fight on the carpet over the pinwheels. Everett started pushing Phillip to the floor and then laying on him with a huge smile on his face. Funny. Justin and I enjoyed a fun date night with Sarah and Robbie. Robbie's mom is staying with them while Sarah recuperates from having her baby last week. Robbie's mom watched the kids over at our home!We enjoyed pizza, salad, and Texas sheet cake while watching RED at the Wood's home. I love that movie. Our evening was very relaxing and enjoyable. The kids did not get to bed until after 10 pm.

The late bedtime made for a horrible Saturday. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was in a foul mood. I am not sure how we made it through the day with everyone alive and accounted for. Maybe it was the trip to the park that saved some young lives (Everett). Phillip came down with a nasty cough, possibly even strep yesterday. Poor kid was feverish all day yesterday and today. I hope we can contain the sickness before Miekka and crew come this weekend. Going to the Dr tomorrow if he is not better. I found a cute dress at the consignment store this week for Amelia. She is so darn cute! Course she loved having some photos taken before church. Everett fell asleep in the storage room this afternoon. Talk about a strange place to take a nap. Phillip smeared snot and coughed spit on my face while I put him to bed, he was out cold but somehow managed to smear his germs on me. I feel like smearing my body with hand sanitizer...oh wait...I really did smear sanitizer on all my exposed skin.

**props to Amelia on her neat and tidy handwriting. She takes pride in having the neatest handwriting of all the First graders!

****ALERT****Funny story: I was outside waiting for Amelia to come on the bus. I chatted with Sister Siler and Sister Gull while waiting for her. After a while I noticed that Annie's bus had dropped off the kids but Amelia never walked by. I hoped she had snuck by me, nope! She was not in the house. I called the school. Mr Jeffers, the coolest principle ever, said he would find out and call me back. I got a phone call a few minutes later. He was laughing. Finally told me that Amelia and Bryn were in a nook of the play yard practicing magic. The girls were trying to turn the rocks into colorful rainbow rocks. Amelia said her spell was: "please, please, please, please turn a different color." She reported that the rock was not cooperating and stayed ugly gray. I am glad she missed the bus for practicing magic and not because she got lost.

15 September 2013

Goodness! We are getting the edge of all the rain plaguing Colorado. Monday the rain came with a fierce intensity out of the South West, a rare direction for us. Our front picture window was ringing with all the rain and hail. Usually our storms come from the Northwest. It rained so much we had water halfway up our front walk in a matter of 10 minutes. The lightening reminded me of the dry storms that race across Arizona. About 5 minutes into the storm I heard a loud pop and snap. I automatically cringed and waited for the tree to fall on our house. A large branch did snap off but it landed on the neighbors roof. Thankfully, the branch did not damage his roof! The wind gusts were recorded at a ripping 78 miles per hour. My poor garden was flattened. I was actually getting tomatoes this year. Now most of my tomatoes are pocked with hail marks. Sidney did not fare so well. Our electricity was knocked out for 17 hours, two trains were blown over, an apartment building's roof was torn off and the building shifted off the foundation, many trees were blown apart, and many buildings damaged. Crazy storm. The kids enjoyed the evening playing with flashlights and headlamps. We wrote thank you cards by flashlight for FHE while cowering in the basement.

Tuesday school was cancelled due to electrical outages. The kids had a blast cleaning up branches and trying to break the branches. Evelyn turned two weeks old. She changes so much each day. She looks a lot like Amelia but with cute, kissable cheeks. She is spending an hour or more awake each day. Most of the time she is calmly checking out her surroundings while the kids hurricane around her. We are loving all of her newborn snuffles and whiffles.

Wednesday Evelyn had her two week check-up. She weighed in at 7 lbs 14 ounces and grew a 1/4 inch! Dr Shaw was amazed at how fast she gained back her birth weight plus some! Just 12 days ago she weighed 6 lbs 14 oz! I am not surprised, that kid loves to nurse. Everett, Evelyn and I braved a Walmart food trip. It fell apart the last 5-10 minutes. I've spent many moments now nursing the van in between picking up Phillip from preschool and running errands.

All the kids have booger noses. I am a bit apprehensive about the coming winter and having a new baby. Hope we can keep the sickness at bay. Little Evelyn was awake off and on Thursday-Saturday nights with a stuffy nose. She and I spent the nights on the couch sleeping upright. Poor kid. Tired Mom. Sara Thomsen dropped by on Friday to see the baby. She made a quilt, yes!, a quilt!, for Evelyn. It is gorgeous! I've taken Sara's family photos for a year now and we are becoming good friends. I was over the top grateful to her! Also Justin's coworkers dropped by two meals this week for us. I have not cooked a meal in two weeks! Awesome. We are feeling so spoiled.

The kids are having the best time playing with Phillip's birthday toys. He got another gift this week from Grandma and Grandpa Call: an Imaginex Robot center. I keep the new toys in the living room. The boys love to play superhero while I nurse Evelyn. The boys play together so well most of the time. Everett does have quite the short fuse. He tries to put Phillip in time out more than he should, his consequence for playing time out is going to time out. Makes him so mad! Last night another whopper storm ripped across Sidney. The wind was not so bad but it did rain just as much or more than it did on Monday. We feel like our town might just up and float away! I am at home again this Sunday with the boys and Evelyn. Justin is speaking in Cheyenne and Amelia went to church with some friends. I really wanted to go this week but forces combined against us. Next week right?!